


Oathbreaker

by chomperstanaccount



Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:00:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27722492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chomperstanaccount/pseuds/chomperstanaccount
Summary: Thiala has a crisis of faith.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	Oathbreaker

The sun begins to set over the village of Moonstone, the bay cast aglow with shimmering radiance. Divinity, the eye of her god. Thiala sits cross-legged on the pier, staring out at the rippling waves crashing against distant shores as the sound of celebration rings out from behind her. She stares at the sunset, her back to the people she has sworn to protect. 

It’s a simple thing to break an oath. There are no repercussions, really. There are no bolts of lighting sent from heaven to smite her, there are no peals of thunder sent to reprimand her. It’s a quiet affair. 

She was a paladin, first. A Green Teen, long ago. She swore the oaths in the middle of a grand celebration, the Green Teen Jamboreen that every Green Teen, even one just starting out, longs to attend. She knelt before Captain Toegold and spoke the words to raucous applause, music playing in the background. A fanfare. A joyous occasion. 

She sits on the dock, now, a cleric, whispering her oaths to herself, trying to hold to them. She repeats them as a mantra, over and over and over again, as if her words would drown out the desire to cast them aside. To become a paladin once more. But she can’t, can she? No. She was never a good paladin. She was a healer. And that’s all she will be, as much as she’s tried to pretend otherwise. 

Thiala sits still and watches the oranges and the pinks of the sunset transition fully to black, a million stars staring down at her. She’d rather the stars watch her than Pelor. He would not strike her down — he is far too kind, far too complacent for that — but Thiala knows what she will be, after this night is over. And she would rather become an oathbreaker when he isn’t watching her do it. 

She moves, swiveling her waist to draw out a circle of runes with her finger, a pale glow emanating out from the wood where she touches like paint. Zone of Truth is a simple spell: paladins learn it, clerics learn it. And she is both, for now. That will soon change. All those years ago, it was Captain Toegold who cast the spell around her and all the other graduating Green Teens. She swore the oaths, then, and meant it. What she would not give to be able to do that again. 

But it is no longer the past. It does not matter what she did then, it only matters what she can do now. And, she thinks, as she clutches a golden amulet inscribed with the sun in her hands, it is far too easy to say the words outside of a Zone of Truth. She can lie to herself then. But here? She hesitates. She does not want confirmation. But she must. If not for Pelor, for herself. 

“Kindle the Light,” she tries to say. But she can’t. The words cannot leave her lips. She tries again and again to speak them, but she cannot. 

And she knows why. How can she kindle light in others? Mercy, kindness, forgiveness. She pledged to spread those tenets. She swore to forgive and to be kind. And yet, she cannot. 

They killed Shadowfang today. It wasn’t an easy fight: far from it. Alanis made the calls. She always did. In the final moments of the fight, as the dragon summoned her breath for the last time with Ulfgar in her jaws, Alanis made a call. She wagered she could kill the dragon before Shadowfang killed Ulfgar. She was wrong. The dragon snapped the fighter’s — their friend’s — neck. Claws the size of a person’s head crushed Ulfgar’s body, ending his life. It was quick, all over in an instant. Alanis got Ulfgar killed. 

How can Thiala forgive that? How can she show understanding in the face of failure if that failure killed her friend? Even Alanis makes mistakes. Mistakes that would be unforgivable. It remains unforgivable, despite Thiala fixing it. 

She tries to speak the second oath. “Shelter the Light,” she tries to say. Despite knowing it would not work, the pain is not lessened as her mouth stops itself.

Thiala fixed Alanis’ mistake, but that doesn’t mean she wanted to. To shelter the Light is to stand against death, to be a bulwark against wickedness. Thiala knows this. She wouldn’t have done it, had it been her choice. Some mistakes are not forgivable. Some actions cannot be undone. But some sacrifices are justified, despite this. 

Ulfgar laid dead on the ground before the dragon as she began to summon her breath. Shadowfang was a black dragon: she had acid. Acid corrodes a body, even one hardened by the stones of Irondeep. If the dragon spewed acid on Ulfgar, even her magic could not bring him back. Thiala knew this. Alanis knew this. And Alanis commanded Thiala to bring him back. But why should she? She’d never forgive Alanis for allowing Ulfgar to die. She’d never forgive herself for allowing Ulfgar to die. 

But to kill a dragon? To save hundreds more? Thousands more? She’d sacrifice her friend in a heartbeat. She is no bulwark against death. She is a worker of it. 

And yet she healed Ulfgar. She brought him back, just for Ulfgar to now be partying in the tavern, flirting with Alanis, blissfully unaware of the brief moment his life was in the hands of a cleric who did not wish to heal. A cleric who wished she was a paladin instead.

Two oaths broken. Two more to go. 

She already knows she’s broken the next one before she speaks. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t try. “Preserve Your Own Light,” she tries to say. There is no more pain as her own spell stops her. All that remains is resignation. The light has died in her heart. It left not even a few hours ago. It died when Ulfgar died. 

The light in her heart died when she realized what she is, and what she must be. Ulfgar had never been killed before. As dangerous as their lives are, as terrifying their foes, Ulfgar never died before this day. And Thiala was free to fight. She delighted in it, thrived in the of casting spells to kill and to make war, only healing Ulfgar when he asked, only needing to occasionally spare a healing word for Alanis outside of the fray.

Today, that changed. Today, she had to choose. To heal or to fight? She could have killed Shadowfang, Thiala knows. She is a powerful spellcaster. 

And yet Alanis did not trust her. Heal Ulfgar, she told Thiala. Let the fighter fight the dragon. The wizard couldn’t kill it, so let the fighter try. Thiala is a healer. Clerics heal, clerics revivify. Thiala is a cleric. 

Yes. Thiala is a cleric. As she tries to speak her last oath and realizes she cannot, she accepts that as what she is. “Be the Light,” she fails to say. She is not the light. She does not have joy, she does not spread it, she is not a glorious beacon warding off despair. She is not a paladin. She is a cleric. She is a healer. 

“Oathbreaker,” she finally says, the first words that leave her lips since the Zone of Truth was laid. Oathbreaker. For that is what she is. She is not a paladin. She is a cleric. 

Thiala stands up in the darkness, leaving the sun-inscribed amulet on the pier. She turns her back to the sea and enters the Hungry Trout Inn & Tavern. She joins her friends at the celebration as a cleric, for that is all she will ever be. She might as well get used to it.


End file.
